teachers unite- Page 7

[Spider Woman]

Posted: 10/25/08 at 4:53pm

22 year veteran teacher currently teaching middle school science. My advice when having conferences is have the student there and put them on the spot to do most of the talking.I refer to it as "Confessing Your Sins Time". I may start off my asking the student how they think things are going...why?? I love to ask the "What about your work habits and social skills?"question. I also have a grade print out for them to view ( our grade books are electronic and tied to the report card it figures the weights and I do is press 'publish' and they are put on the report card). Some kids cry, but they are held accountable. Plus, parents have heard it before, but never from their own kid before. There is something powerful about having a student say "I don't do my homework".

[george95]

Posted: 10/25/08 at 9:07pm

Two years ago during conferences, I was telling the father of a freshmen about some of his many problems. I was saying how he put his head down, he forgets his pen, he disrupts the class, he talks out of turn, and then I said "and he forgot his homework twice" And when I said that, the dad grabbed the boy's shirt, and yanked him close, and then pushed the boy back and forth, and each time the boy went forward, the father punched him in the face with the fist that was grabbing the shirt. The boy started crying and saying "ow dad stop stop!"

Luckily there were tons of witnesses (we have our conferences in the gym). The principal called DYFS and the father struck his child many, many other times at school. He has since calmed down, but the other kids still tease him about it.

[bwaybabe2]

Posted: 10/26/08 at 2:46am

I LOVE teachers :) Nice thread, and some great stories (adamgreer's about ATOTC = ).
It is not often that Broadway contributes exceptional programs for schools, and of course, teachers (except the usual "student group" sessions after some shows). Here is something that came up recently which I am not sure everyone is aware of (it is "lengthy", but worth reading):

"The producers of Tale have created an innovative new program never before done on Broadway: Adopt-A-Class. This one-of-a-kind program provides the funds to bring classrooms of inner city students to enjoy, perhaps for the first time, a wonderful and memorable Broadway experience.
The creator of this program, Roberta Nusim, grew up in the Bronx and is a former NYC teacher.

Here is a brief description of the program:

...How Does the Program Work? Make a tax-deductible contribution to the Weiner Nusim Educational Foundation, a 501c3 not-for-profit organization, and your entire contribution will fund the purchase of tickets for young people to see A Tale of Two Cities.

Your contribution of $2500 will purchase 30-50 tickets for youth to an upcoming performance of A Tale of Two Cities. You can make any donation in multiples of $500.

You can earmark your tax-deductible contribution to send young people from any school or community group you select as long as it is a public school, church, synagogue, library or other not-for-profit institution serving young people.

Some sponsors are funding groups in their own communities, others are selecting schools they attended as children, others are adopting inner city schools, local teams, religious or community youth groups. You can select the specific school or youth organization you would like to fund or leave it to the Foundation to choose for you.

On Wednesday September 8th a group of 50 students from Mott Haven School (a Title One school) in the South Bronx initiated the program when they came to their first Broadway experience at the 2pm matinee.

The following is an excerpt from a letter by Bob Nation who was an educator in New Jersey for 38 years:

“Hello all,

I wanted to take a moment to remind everyone...of the incredible thing that happened in the Al Hirshfeld Theatre yesterday afternoon.

Fifty students from the south Bronx, who had never stepped foot in a Broadway theatre, came to see A Tale of Two Cities and had the "time of their life." At the talk back many members of the cast were gracious enough to talk with these kids even though they had another show in a couple of hours. Roberta Nusim captured their attention with reference to her own schooling that occurred within walking distance from Mott Haven. And they applauded wildly when they heard it was her foundation that got them there. What a delight to hear such innocent questions as: "were you really singing live?" "were there real musicians playing down there?" or comments like, "its gonna make reading the book so much more fun." And 50 "thank you's" - one by one!

Realize the mark that A Tale of Two Cities, the musical, is making on this community that no other Broadway show has yet to do. Throughout my years as an educator in a so called, "well to do" community, I never imagined that a school within walking or subway distance from Broadway may never have seen a live, professional show..."

The program really did have an impact. Most of these students were reading Tale as part of their curriculum and all of them spoke about how after seeing the show they had a greater understanding of the story and were now encouraged to go back and read the novel or class. It makes a difference and even if only one student is motivated to grow and learn that is one more person who can make a positive impact on this world.

If you know of a group who would qualify for this program or know of benefactors who would like to aid in this effort...please help us bring this valuable educational tool to the lives of students everywhere. Help us Adopt A Class.

Please also note that students in New York City do not require transportation. However, if you prefer to sponsor a school outside of NYC transportation costs will be additional, estimated between $500 and $1000 per busload.

You will receive confirmation of the date and group that you are sponsoring and you are welcome to attend the performance and meet the group. You will also receive an acknowledgement from the Weiner Nusim Foundation of your contribution for tax purposes.

Please spread the word about Adopt A Class...and Inspire Young People to Make Their Dreams Come True to your friends and business associates today.

If you are interested in making a donation to this exciting program or wish to recommend a specific school or youth group to add to our list awaiting sponsors please contact Roberta Nusim at [e-mail] or call for more information 203-526-3895."
-----
Now my commnentary:
Yes, I know there's going to be some ironic comments/thoughts, about the producers serving themselves, but think about it...ANY show could have done this YEARS ago, but never happened...and there's more "lucrative" audiences to reach for from a producer's point of view, than underpriviledged school kids...the bottom line is, some kids will now have an opportunity to be inspired by Broadway and theater, which will enrich their own lives or will, in turn, allow them to some day inspire others.

[LePetiteFromage]

Posted: 10/26/08 at 2:51am

Updated On: 1/13/09 at 02:51 AM

[Harper3]

Posted: 10/26/08 at 1:33pm

My concentration is English and my certification is grades 7-12 so theatre and literature are inseperable and, in my opinion, integral to the course.

So I always relate theatre to writing, etc., so this is a great program!

[singingwendy]

Posted: 10/28/08 at 5:55pm

So...taught the whole afternoon with no electricity. And this is my "push around the cart with the keyboard and stereo that have to be plugged in to work" day. Let's just say I'm really glad I had over 5 years of summer camp experience at knowing how to sing and play games with out a pitch source! Anyone who thinks teaching is boring has no idea!

[violet72]

Posted: 10/29/08 at 8:23am

At one of my schools we are having elections for president of the school and it has been on going for the past month. Yesterday they got to vote. We had real election booths and everything. It was very good and the students took it very serious. They even had a Q and A with the candiates and were asking questions about how they will help students with their academics

Anyway next week is our favorite week. We have school on Monday, the kids have off on Tuesday but we have a workshop, Wednesday we have school, and Thursday and Friday we are off for Teacher Convention...So I only have to plan for 2 days...woohoo

The weather was crazy yesterday and when it snowed I took my students outside to experience it...one had never seen snow..we took black construction paper and tried to catch the flakes...we were only out there for 10 minutes because it was so cold

[singingwendy]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 7:29pm

We had voting in our school today, and that caused tons of craziness. Lots of security concerns because there is no way to secure the gym from the rest of the building. As far as I know, there were no major issues, aside from a random man wandering down the hall looking "for another bathroom".

I was pleasantly surprised that the majority of the students, even kindergarten, seemed to understand that today was Election Day and that people were voting for a new president. We sang lots of patriotic songs today (we're also preparing for a Veterans Day assembly) and the kids seemed to know this was an important day.

Just wondered what anyone else experienced with their students today for Election Day.

[violet72]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 7:38pm

kids were off today...we had workshops all day...and they were boring

[KelRel]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 9:31pm

We had school today and it was insane. My kids were SO motivated for the election that it was hard to get through a math lesson without a kid going, "hey, can we check the news again to see if there is any updates on the election?" I had to keep reminding them that the polls were open until 6pm. It was a very exciting time to be a teacher.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 11/4/08 at 10:36pm

There's NEVER an exciting time to be a teacher.

[SweetQintheLights]

Posted: 11/5/08 at 5:42pm

Every morning there are announcements on the TV. The 5th graders at the school discuss the news of the day, weather, sports, etc.

So, of course today they announced the new president. I wasn't fully paying attention as I was talking to the cooperating teacher (I am there for my practicum hours), but I heard them say something about Obama's late mother and father.

One student looks at me with a puzzled face and I asked him what was wrong. He asked, "What were they late for?"

[colleen_lee]

Posted: 11/7/08 at 7:28am

I tried to call in sick today and was told I wasn't allowed.

There is a flu bug going around school and it is vicious. It strikes very quickly (we've had kids vomiting all over school, on the buses, everywhere!) and about 1/4 to 1/3 of each class has been absent most of this week.

Today is my turn, and I can't even stay home. All the subs are already covering for people, they even have the principals, counselors, aides and office staff covering classes.

I teach music, so I am going to school with a DVD and puke bag.

[singingwendy]

Posted: 12/3/08 at 3:18pm

Bumped this thread just to vent....so you may want to ignore...

Our district is in some serious financial straights right now (basically the result of the credit crisis) and so they've been making lots of cuts. One of the areas that has been hit hardest is field trips. Nearly all of them have been cancelled.

Now, elementary vocal music gets NOTHING from the district budget except about 5 field trips a year. And now we're told they're gone. So, at our music meeting we were asked to brainstorming ways to find money for the ones that are basically "in district", and bussing is the only expense.

So, I'm talking to another teacher, who's very active in the union, and she's telling me that we really can't do any fundraising. I was hoping to organize some sort of faculty recital. I simply can't understand this when the high schools charge for their concerts, get paid to perform at outside functions, and are constantly holding fundraisers to go on trips. She keeps saying "you can't pay for your own program. They'll raise taxes and it will return". Well, I agree with the 'raise taxes" part, but it's not going to be enough to fill the deficit and I can guarantee any extra money is not going to go to bringing back these field trips.

What's really making me crazy, is that here are people willing to do something to make sure our kids don't miss out on valuable educational opportunities and we're being told we can't do anything. I am so sick of the apathy of so many of the teachers I work with, and the whole "we can't do anything" attitude. I mean, when we raised questions about the safety of old choral risers, the solution was "well, don't put the kids on the risers".

I hate to say it, but I'm envisioning about 5-10 years in the future, when the pianos we have from the 1960's are all dead, our stereos are kaput (actually, the district supplied stereos all died a few years ago, we've just been lucky enough to have schools buy them), our text books are in tatters, and they just basically say, "well, it would cost too much to replace all of that, so let's just cut music classes".

Well...I warned you it was a rant......just really feeling the frustration of public education today!

[violet72]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 8:28am

I am bumping this thread because it is a VERY sad day at school today. Yesterday about 5pm one of our 4 year old students was hit by a car and killed. They were crossing a very busy intersection(near a major highway) with an older sibling(he was like 16). What this 4 year old was doing crossing this intersection or where the parents were is still not known. The child's teacher is very upset(understandably) as is all the teachers in the school (it's a very small school) How do you explain to 4 year olds that one of their classmates won't ever be coming back to school? Many of them know what happened(we are a small town) and their parents talked to them, but they are still upset. I don't know, it's just sad

news story

Updated On: 12/10/08 at 08:28 AM

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 12:41pm

Violet - that's horrible!

Have any of you dealt with plagiarism on a middle school level? We have a kid who's now plagiarized SIX papers -- he's been given the chance to redo EVERY paper at just a point reduction -and received NO other punishment. Our admin. told us today that he will NEVER give a suspension for plagiarizing. I don't get it - don't you get kicked out of school for that in higher grades? If the kid stole something from a locker, I KNOW he would get suspended (I've seen it happen) - how is this not as bad?

[adamgreer]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 1:11pm

What is the administrator's justification for not penalizing this kid for plagiarizng? He doesn't think that is a serious offense?

If one of our kids gets caught plagiarizing, in addition to receiving an F on the assignment, they get suspended.

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 1:20pm

I think the justification is simply that they don't want to deal with parents. My entire unit (seven teachers) who work with the kid have put in writing our recommendation that he get suspended, but the administration refuses to do anything. Other than a lowered grade (which in the grand scheme of things has only a minor effect to begin with since it's only one of many grades in each class and it's not even a zero since he has redone the work) the kid has suffered NO consequences. In fact, when the father came in, he DEFENDED his kid, asking that we pardon him for this entirely, reassuring us that it would never happen again. As it happens, in one of the classes, the teacher found that he plagiarized the redone assignment! At least she was able to give a zero for that one.

The simple fact is, administration is TERRIFIED of parents. They will do anything to avoid dealing with them. Additionally, I found out that the school needs to report to the state how many suspensions are made each year, and as a result they need to keep the numbers down or else face investigation.

Fear of parents has gotten so bad that last year a social studies text book was taken out of the classes because the way the author handled the pilgrims landing here was given to much of a Christian slant! I am not making this up. ONE parent complained, and the superintendent yanked the book costing the district thousands of dollars.

And people wonder why we complain.

[violet72]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 1:40pm

He should totally be suspended for this. If he was a college student he would be expelled. One of our band kids got a paper off the internet and then he photocopied it and 2 other kids also used it and turned it in. All 3 of them were supspended and given a zero for the assignment and the suspension happened to be on the week of the prom, so all 3 of them were not allowed to attend the prom.

I agree many administrators are afraid of the parents
"The simple fact is, administration is TERRIFIED of parents. They will do anything to avoid dealing with them. Additionally, I found out that the school needs to report to the state how many suspensions are made each year, and as a result they need to keep the numbers down or else face investigation."

Yes this is true and it is why in my district we are having revolts between staff and administrators. We have kids being disruptive and fighting and not being suspended.Also we had one student call a teacher a racist, nothing was done, then the same child called an administrator a racist, then he was suspended.

Also we were told in a faculty meeting yesterday that they are giving us all lesson plan templates to start using in Jan. They are long and ridiculous, almost scripted. Also in the meeting we were told we were not allowed to have coffee or hot beverages in our classroom. Is it Christmas break yet?

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 3:04pm

We have those templates too. They're overly long and disallow for any creativity or spontaneity -- which goes against every good practice I know as a teacher.

I really can't believe that we haven't suspended this kid -- or at LEAST a detention. I'm SURE he'll do it again - he hasn't learned his lesson. Our school seems to go on the belief that we don't do anything to a kid unless they're a really good kid who messed up once - THEN we throw the book at them.

Oh, and today I was semi-harassed by my AP. He came into our unit meeting and interrupted our agenda. The teacher keeping it said to him, "We keep an agenda here, would you like to be inserted into it." He then said, "I would love to be inserted in. . ." with a real smirk on his face. He then started laughing hysterically, turned to me and said "Get your mind out of the gutter, Jason." I said, "I wasn't even smiling." He has a running history of coming CLOSE to harassing a female teacher in our unit who wasn't there today - had he said that to her, he CLEARLY would have crossed the line. We shouldn't have to deal with this.

[violet72]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 5:55pm

wow that is inappropriate

Also today one of my friends who is the reading tutor was out and everyday we local college students come in to school and help with afterschool tutoring, so there was no one to help them out. Guess who was asked to help? Thats right me. I did it but it's the third time in 2 weeks. It's not like I have things to do after school. I left at my regular time though. I know it is petty to bitch about this but I have had it and the principal knows not to ask me again.

I can't wait for break...this year has been hell so far

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 6:07pm

Jason, I'm quite surprised that your principal is reticent to do anything serious about your student's blatant plagiarism. In the relatively short time that I've been a college professor (two years), three students at my institution have been flat-out expelled for plagiarism on their first offense. No second chances permitted. Even I think that is a little harsh, but those are the rules of the college and it sends a message that plagiarism is never tolerated. And one day, if he pursues a higher education, your student will likely receive the same rude awakening.

Strangely enough, in the eleven years that I taught high school English, I never once encountered plagiarism. In the first two years of my professorship, I've personally dealt with one case, and have been witness to two others.
Updated On: 12/10/08 at 06:07 PM

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 7:24pm

I agree totally. I'm not saying the kid should be expelled in seventh grade, but SOMETHING more serious should be done to really send the message home. The admins in my school are TERRIFIED of doing anything to these kids - really, if the kids could figure it out, they could run RAMPANT (and some do). Grades don't matter (everyone passes), attendance is irrelevant (everyone passes), and there are little to no consequences for bad behavior. I think this plagiarism issue has ticked off more teachers than just about anything else I've seen so far in this school.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 7:31pm

Jason, the sentiments expressed in your post perfectly characterize why I made the move from secondary ed to college. (Well, that and the fact that I finally got around to finishing my graduate degree) Admins are scared sh*tless of parents. There is no structure to education; everybody passes. I was actually told by my ex-principal that no matter how badly written a paper was, I was REQUIRED to pass the student if the intention of his or her paper was clear. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

An interesting aside: one of the students expelled for plagiarism at the college where I teach was in my office-mate's African American fiction course. She bought a term paper from an online website about The Color Purple and turned it in without reading it. Turns out, the article was written by Alice Walker and was on the syllabus for the class! That student deserved expulsion for stupidity in addition to plagiarism.

[jasonf]

Posted: 12/10/08 at 7:39pm

At least that makes for a decent story. Mine is just an idiot who thought we couldn't tell the difference between an admittedly good seventh grade writer and Gorky.